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New Haven, Conn. (Oct. 13, 2015) – Larry Bingaman, president and CEO of the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA), announced that the RWA was recently honored with Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies’ (AMWA) Platinum Award for Utility Excellence. This award, combined with the company’s Utility of the Year Award presented last month by the New England Water Works Association (NEWWA), amplifies the RWA’s emphasis on sustainable decision making, reinforcing its higher purpose: to ensure the New Haven region is well-positioned to maintain its excellent water supply and use it as a source of growth, opportunity and vitality for the region’s stakeholders.

“The recognition of these two distinguished awards demonstrates the value of our commitment to conscious capitalism as a vehicle to support stakeholder interdependencies and elevate sustainability,” Bingaman said. “We’re excited that our focus on the tenets of conscious capitalism is yielding award-winning results that are both quantitative and qualitative, improving the bottom line and mitigating rate increases for customers.”

The RWA was one of only eight utilities nationwide to earn this honor. The Platinum Award, which can only be applied for three years after earning the Gold Award, recognizes outstanding achievement in implementing the nationally recognized Attributes of Effective Utility Management. The Attributes were developed by a panel of respected water and wastewater utility executives, commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, AMWA and other water industry associations.
The Platinum Award for Utility Excellence also validates that RWA is realizing its higher purpose while upholding its mission to provide customers with high quality water and services at a reasonable cost and maintaining a strong commitment to the communities it serves. The RWA’s efforts to improve operating efficiency have allowed it to mitigate customer rate increases by 12 percent and receive high customer satisfaction ratings. In addition to promoting the preservation of watershed land and aquifers, the RWA offers environmental education programs to teach children how their actions affect ecological quality. In the last 25 years, the RWA has educated more than 350,000 students.
Chuck M. Murray, AMWA president and general manager of Fairfax Water in Virginia said, “AMWA awards recognize the extraordinary performance of water agencies where management vision and employee commitment create a sustainable utility producing ample supplies of clean, safe drinking water. The communities served by these award winners should be proud of the accomplishments of their forward-thinking, exceptionally well-managed public utilities.”

The AMWA Platinum Award is given only to those select U.S. utilities that have shown a commitment and dedication to sustainability, their local community, and the environment, through effective utility management according to the attributes and keys to utility management success as defined by the AMWA and its collaborators. Award winners are industry-leading water systems with innovative managers and dedicated workforces who create sustainable utilities marked by high quality, affordable water, responsive customer service, and attention to resource management and environmental protection. AMWA honored public drinking water systems with its utility management awards on Oct. 12 at its 2015 Executive Management Conference in Savannah, Ga.

About the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA):
The RWA provides customers with high-quality water and service at a reasonable cost while promoting the preservation of watershed land and aquifers. On average, the RWA supplies 45 million gallons of water per day to 430,000 people in a twenty-town region centered in New Haven, Conn. The water utility maintains 1,700 miles of distribution mains and more than 118,000 service connections across 260 contiguous square miles in its district. Committed to its community and educating about the value of natural resources, the RWA connects with over 13,000 students annually through its educational programs.

For more information about the RWA, visit www.rwater.com or call 203-562-4020. Be sure to stay up-to-date by following the RWA on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.